"We were on a highly customized version of PDS' software for 15 years," said Todd Lombardi, director of compensation and benefits at Wawa. "Before moving to the newest version, we evaluated other options and selected PDS again because they continued to be the best fit and partner for us. They have a level of familiarity with us, we have comfort with their product and their price point made good financial sense for us."

"PDS was crucial to the success of the migration. We had a wonderful team of PDS resources on-site during our implementation project," said Lombardi. "We needed the leadership and support of PDS for the success. It is rare to have a relationship with a technology vendor with such longevity these days. It shows the quality of the relationship and the attentiveness that PDS provides to us and all of their clients."

Vista HRMS handles the weekly payroll processing for Wawa's more than 18,000 associates, processes more than 30,000 W-2s annually for the chain and tracks information such as benefits eligibility and retirement plan contributions. Vista also serves as a data repository for associate information, such as emergency contacts, benefits, compensation and demographic information.

The implementation team had to migrate all of the data, as well as set up interfaces with more than 100 internal and external systems that regularly exchange information with Vista.

"We had an extremely successful implementation because we took the time to properly plan and we had the right resources," said Michelle Volkwine, HR project manager at Wawa. She added that it was valuable having PDS on site at Wawa to support the implementation. The firm helped Wawa with "system set up, best practice recommendations, issue identification and resolution, and testing efforts, as well as system training and knowledge transfer."

In the HRMS software development business for more than 35 years, Blue Bell, Pa.-based PDS is a provider of an integrated human resource, benefits administration, recruiting and payroll software application that enables organizations to focus on more strategic issues and less on administrative HR, benefits and payroll activities. In addition to core HRMS functionality, Vista HRMS offers self-service, English-language query tool and workflow automation.

Wawa operates more than 580 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia from its headquarters in Wawa, Pa.

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